Secret Ballot Procedure Bill

[Gabu]

As introduced by Sen. MasterJedi:

Secret Ballot Procedure Bill

Section 1

1. During any federal election, a registered voter may choose to submit their ballot or absentee ballot in secret.  This is considered an optional alternative form of voting to a public ballot.  The method of vote submission is outlined in Section 2, Clause 4 below.

2. All secret ballots must satisfy all clauses outlined in Section 1 of the Omnibus Election System, Procedure and Certification Act.

3. No registered voter may vote both publicly and secretly in the same election.  If this occurs, the Secretary of Forum Affairs will discount both votes.

Section 2

1. For the purposes of counting and validating secret ballots, an Electoral Committee will be assembled by no later than a week before the election is scheduled to begin.

2. The Committee will be comprised of three members, consisting of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Forum Affairs, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

3. In the event that any of the office holders listed either are themselves candidates in the election or are not present to fulfill their duty, those in the aforementioned situation shall be replaced by the highest office holder in the following list who is not a candidate present in the election and who is present to fulfill the duty:

Senior Associate Justice
Junior Associate Justice
Vice President
President Pro Tempore
Secretary of State
Attorney General
Secretary of Defense
Secretary of the Treasury
1A Senator
1B Senator
2A Senator
2B Senator
3A Senator
3B Senator
4A Senator
4B Senator
5A Senator
5B Senator

4. Identical copies of all secret ballots will be submitted for counting by the voter to each of the three members of the Committee in the form of a personal message.

5. Once voting has officially ended, the Committee will convene in a private and suitable manner.  Each member will ensure that their own collected ballots are identical to the corresponding ballots collected by the other two members.

6. In the event that any one of the three copies of a ballot does not match the corresponding copies, the ballot will be discounted.

7. All legitimate ballots will then be incorporated into the vote count and subsequent certification for the relevant election.

8. Once the election has been certified, the Committee will disband.

[Gabu]

I think the most obvious change to be made is that "A" and "B" senators no longer exist... unless anyone has any objects, I'll just change "A" senators to be regional senators and "B" senators to be district senators.

[MAS117]

I urge Senators to reject this bill. It's confuses the elections way to much, and it creates alot of extra work for the SoFA, and frankly work  that isnt needed. We don't need more committees. The current system is working fine, theres no need to change it. We have never came across anyone who wanted to vote in secret.

[King]

Like I said, we need to stop all this bureaucracy and decentralize the electoral process.

[Jake]

Amazingly I agree with MAS. This bill is another layer of bureaucracy to wade through and another head ache for the forum affairs department.

[Sam Spade]

I assume there are problems here in the Constitution with Presidential elections having to be done by public post.  The Wiki is down right now, so I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure.

I will not support different systems for President and Senate elections and have enough trouble supporting different systems for federal and regional elections beyond what we already have, since that's what this bill mandates.

Therefore, I am leaning to vote against this, unless someone brings me a reason why it's necessary and why it won't cause great havoc.

[Peter]

I have PMed some recommendations to Joe on how to overcome the constitutional issues (its going to need an amendment); This should not be taken to mean I support this, I simply like to facilitate making things as simple as possilbe when modifying the constitution.

[Joe Republic]

OK I'll begin to try and address all the concerns people have made.  It's still a little early and I'm quite tired, so I'll try my best.

Thank you to Peter for his recommendations regarding this bill.  He has noted that this measure may actually conflict with Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution, i.e. "... All elections to the Presidency shall be by public post."  However, I believe that there may be a loophole here that prevents the Senate from going to the trouble of turning this into a messy constitutional amendment process.  As the SoFA reports the summary of the secret votes at the end of the election weekend in the actual voting booth thread, then I would see that as a public post on behalf of the voters, which therefore complies with the Constitution's requirements.  Hopefully the Senate will agree with this logic.

As for some minor details:  Could a senator please introduce the following amendments please?

1. In Section 2, Clause 3, the list of eligible committee members is amended to remove the PPT and all senators as they are listed, and replace them as follows:
* District 1 senator
* District 2 senator
* District 3 senator
* District 4 senator
* District 5 senator
* Mideast Regional senator
* Midwest Regional senator
* Northeast Regional senator
* Pacific Regional senator
* Southeast Regional senator

2. Of the three original committee members, the Deputy SoFA is replaced by the Senate PPT.

[Joe Republic]

I urge Senators to reject this bill. It's confuses the elections way to much, and it creates alot of extra work for the SoFA, and frankly work  that isnt needed. We don't need more committees. The current system is working fine, theres no need to change it. We have never came across anyone who wanted to vote in secret.

I really don't think it's that much extra work for the SoFA.  All he is there for is to see that the votes meet the requirements that are laid out in other legislation, which is what he already does.

I'm afraid the current system is not working fine.  Too many voters (including myself) are coming to the conclusion that public ballots cause a great deal of embarrassment and awkwardness.  The current system puts too much emphasis on who you like more, not whose policies you prefer.  And in turn that turns this into a popularity contest, where people are too afraid of voting for "unpopular" candidates, even if they match their own views.  Then after all of that, there's the chance that you'll get pounced on by certain members who take a personal dislike to the way you voted.  If that isn't a deterrent to new voters, I don't know what is.

Also, the ability to see how everybody else has voted so far during an election can allow for tactical voting, which I'm sure you'll agree is unfair.  By allowing for a secret ballot, people will be discouraged from tactical voting, and encouraged to vote fairly instead.

As for your last sentence, that is incorrect.  I believe this thread shows that there is significant demand for a secret ballot.  Myself, Al, Lewis Trondheim, Nation, Skybridge, Texasgurl and Ian spring immediately to mind.  Even Senator King, who now seems opposed to this, agreed to support the original move for a secret ballot.

[MasterJedi]

I would like to introduce to following 2 amendments written by Governor Joe Republic. There ya go Joe.

1. In Section 2, Clause 3, the list of eligible committee members is amended to remove the PPT and all senators as they are listed, and replace them as follows:
* District 1 senator
* District 2 senator
* District 3 senator
* District 4 senator
* District 5 senator
* Mideast Regional senator
* Midwest Regional senator
* Northeast Regional senator
* Pacific Regional senator
* Southeast Regional senator



2. Of the three original committee members, the Deputy SoFA is replaced by the Senate PPT.

[Joe Republic]

Thanks MasterJedi.
--------

I assume there are problems here in the Constitution with Presidential elections having to be done by public post.  The Wiki is down right now, so I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure.

Hopefully my earlier reasoning regarding the Constitution will allay your concerns.  I'm keen to not turn this into yet another messy constitutional amendment.

I will not support different systems for President and Senate elections and have enough trouble supporting different systems for federal and regional elections beyond what we already have, since that's what this bill mandates.

I'm unsure what you mean here.  This measure applies to all federal elections - presidential AND senatorial.

Therefore, I am leaning to vote against this, unless someone brings me a reason why it's necessary and why it won't cause great havoc.

Hopefully my response to Governor MAS will at least partially convince you of the need for this bill to pass.

[Colin]

I oppose this bill. We have had calls for a private vote before and I have been against them at that time as well. This leaves the election process too open for fraud, corruption, and vote editing. This puts the entire election in the hands of a few men when an election should be decided by the entire nation. Even though I don't like the votes being open for all to see it is better than a few people counting the ballots in secret and possibly changing those ballots. I am sorry Joe but I cannot support this.

[Sam Spade]

Thanks MasterJedi.
--------

I assume there are problems here in the Constitution with Presidential elections having to be done by public post.  The Wiki is down right now, so I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure.

Hopefully my earlier reasoning regarding the Constitution will allay your concerns.  I'm keen to not turn this into yet another messy constitutional amendment.

I will not support different systems for President and Senate elections and have enough trouble supporting different systems for federal and regional elections beyond what we already have, since that's what this bill mandates.

I'm unsure what you mean here.  This measure applies to all federal elections - presidential AND senatorial.

Therefore, I am leaning to vote against this, unless someone brings me a reason why it's necessary and why it won't cause great havoc.

Hopefully my response to Governor MAS will at least partially convince you of the need for this bill to pass.

It's ok.  My questions have been answered now.

At least for me, it's a choice between choosing between the problems that you described (in terms of tactical voting) and the problems that Colin described, both of which are issues.

The fact that some people like to aggravate voters after they vote is simply an annoyance.  We cannot stop the fact that certain members of the forum (not mentioning any names) like to be pricks and pick on other people for no reason.

As for right now, I am leaning against it, because I view Colin's concerns as being larger in scope and potentiality of electoral fraud.  Therefore, as for right now, I will either vote Nay or Abstain.

The only way I would even consider voting Aye on this now is if a clause were added saying that after the election was over, every vote by a voter who voted by secret ballot were published publicly on the voting booth thread, and if the voter found out there were improprieties in publishing his vote, he could sue the Committee for voter fraud.  This eliminates the aggravate the voter section of the bill, but does not eliminate the tactical voting section of the bill.  But it helps with the potentiality for fraud, which I consider great in this type of bill otherwise.

I will write an amendment later on this. 

I have no problem with the present proposed amendments, btw.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So far there seems to be only one valid arguement and non-technical against a secret ballot (King's idea to "decentralize" the electoral process is so insane that I'm assuming it's a joke. Hey, why not flog the contract to the highest bidder? ) and that is the possibility of fraud. The same concerns exist in the real world and I do not see any attempts to scrap the secret ballot. As for the trust issue, if we can't trust a group of people to count the votes fairly, then we might as well pack this whole thing in.

The case for a secret ballot is simple; every election certain people intimidate voters. Individual votes are picked over in a blatently partisan manner, and there's usually a couple of disgusting cases of certain members starting witch hunts against people who voted for candidate x or who made a tiny mistake on the ballot. And so on. This time round this vile circus has started earlier with the sickening actions of a certain Presidential candidate about a vote in an election in which he is not actually involved in and has nowt to do with.
It is disgraceful, it is undemocratic and is much, much more worrying than a slightly increased chance of ballot stuffing.

[Colin]

So far there seems to be only one valid arguement and non-technical against a secret ballot (King's idea to "decentralize" the electoral process is so insane that I'm assuming it's a joke. Hey, why not flog the contract to the highest bidder? ) and that is the possibility of fraud. The same concerns exist in the real world and I do not see any attempts to scrap the secret ballot. As for the trust issue, if we can't trust a group of people to count the votes fairly, then we might as well pack this whole thing in.

The case for a secret ballot is simple; every election certain people intimidate voters. Individual votes are picked over in a blatently partisan manner, and there's usually a couple of disgusting cases of certain members starting witch hunts against people who voted for candidate x or who made a tiny mistake on the ballot. And so on. This time round this vile circus has started earlier with the sickening actions of a certain Presidential candidate about a vote in an election in which he is not actually involved in and has nowt to do with.
It is disgraceful, it is undemocratic and is much, much more worrying than a slightly increased chance of ballot stuffing.

And do you thinnk situations like that would be solved by a secret ballot? If we put in place some sort of system like what Senator Spade mentioned before people will see the votes anyway and will then get on the cases of certain citizens. If we do not show the votes then any candidate who feels that they were wronged in anyway by the process could call out the electoral commission and we could have such large and long running court cases that it would be very hard to conduct elections. When King tried to use his power as SoFA unwisely during the NixonNow vs. Blerpiez special election people were able to call him out on it because they were able to see the ballots and they were able to see when and how votes were edited or deleted. The whole election procedure was transparent. If we institute a secret vote in Atlasia the voting system thus is no longer transparent. Al your arguement is that it would produce less electoral chaos than their is now but, in my mind, while it will reduce the amount of cases like we have now it will open up a new can of worms of challengeable aspects of the electoral system.

[Joe Republic]

I'll echo Al's response to the fears about fraud.  Surely if we can't trust the people that we've already allowed to get to executive office to count a few ballots, then I think we ought to be worrying about a few other things instead.

I acknowledge Colin's concerns here, but I really feel that this will solve many problems with the current system.  As for the issue of court cases becoming involved - this is why I ensured that the Supreme Court would play a key role in the Electoral Committee (where possible); so that they can ensure that everything is conducted legally and fairly.  If a disenchanted voter or candidate is unhappy with a result and feels the need to challenge the result, so be it.  The secret ballot doesn't really change much, as the Committee can easily testify, and publish the results if really necessary.

I strongly urge the Senate to have faith in this measure.  I'm confident that no doomsday scenario could possibly be worsened by having this supplementary voting system in place.

[Jake]

The fun of election weekend comes from watching the totals rack up and see who's in the lead. With this, that is taken away and it becomes simply cast your ballot and wait three days for the results. Takes away from the fun for no real gain.

[Joe Republic]

The fun of election weekend comes from watching the totals rack up and see who's in the lead. With this, that is taken away and it becomes simply cast your ballot and wait three days for the results. Takes away from the fun for no real gain.

There is still that element.  Remember that voters have a choice of whether to vote publicly or secretly.  So if people still want to vote according to the current system, they may still do so.  In which case, they can still watch the results as they come in too.  And I would like the thought of having a surprise twist at the end of the weekend, when the results from the secret votes come in too.  It all adds to the fun of it.

However, there is the practical consideration too.  While many people (like you and me) like to watch the results for the fun of it, some others like to watch them to see how best they can vote tactically.  That of course puts some candidates at a disadvantage, which I think is unacceptable.

[MasterJedi]

NOTE TO GABU, GABU LOOK HERE!!!!!!

Don't forget the 2 amendments I introcued for Joe Republic.

GABU LOOK HERE, GABU LOOK HERE!!!!!!

[Gabu]

NOTE TO GABU, GABU LOOK HERE!!!!!!

Don't forget the 2 amendments I introcued for Joe Republic.

GABU LOOK HERE, GABU LOOK HERE!!!!!!

NOTE TO MASTERJEDI, MASTERJEDI LOOK HERE!!!!!!

Amendments now need 24 hours of debate time.

MASTERJEDI LOOK HERE, MASTERJEDI LOOK HERE!!!!!!

[Sam Spade]

Actually, the fact that the Supreme Court is involved in this ballot-counting procedure worries me just as greatly as my earlier concerns.  It means that any electoral challenges would translate into the Chief Justice having to remove himself from all election cases dealing with the vote.

And after all, remember that Migrendel was once Supreme Court Chief Justice. 

[DanielX]

Blah. How many people really care here anyway? It's not like goons will show up at your door and beat the heck out of you for voting for the wrong candidate .

[MasterJedi]

NOTE TO GABU, GABU LOOK HERE!!!!!!

Don't forget the 2 amendments I introcued for Joe Republic.

GABU LOOK HERE, GABU LOOK HERE!!!!!!

NOTE TO MASTERJEDI, MASTERJEDI LOOK HERE!!!!!!

Amendments now need 24 hours of debate time.

MASTERJEDI LOOK HERE, MASTERJEDI LOOK HERE!!!!!!

Just didn't want you to miss them Gabu, sometimes you do that!

[Gabu]

Just didn't want you to miss them Gabu, sometimes you do that!

I'm going to be very glad when my term as PPT expires and someone else gets to be subjected to this.

[MasterJedi]

Just didn't want you to miss them Gabu, sometimes you do that!

I'm going to be very glad when my term as PPT expires and someone else gets to be subjected to this.

Oh you know you'll run for another round of it.